Syracuse coach Gary Agnew came out to meet the media horde after practice on Thursday, then remembered he had forgotten something.

"Hang on. I have to get my Kleenex,'' he said. "I have a runny nose.''

It was typical Agnew, his way of responding to a charge by Moose coach Alain Vigneault after Game 4 that Agnew, as a player, was soft. The implication was that Agnew then had no right to coach like a bully and goon up the game.

Agnew had a chance to respond to Vigneault's comments on Thursday, but willingly let that chance slip by.

"I'm not a personal attack type of guy. I like to keep it in the framework of the team,'' he said. "The little kindergarten, he said, she said, is not a game I like to play.''

After the game Wednesday, Vigneault cited two incidents. The first was a fight between Syracuse's Steven Goertzen and Manitoba's Nathan McIver and a near-fight between Syracuse's Alexandre Picard and the Moose's Alexandre Burrows at the same time.

Secondly, there were two line brawls at the end of the game.

I tried to ask Vigneault to explain his logic on Thursday. Burrows and Picard were chirping in the warmups, so it was a given that they would go ASAP. And in the first line brawl, Syracuse's players on the ice were Picard, Mark Hartigan, Geoff Platt, Aaron Johnson and Andy Delmore. Hardly a team of heavyweights.

So where was the gooning it up?

"For me, last night's game is behind us,'' Vigneault said. "Everything I had to say about last night's game has been said.''